Who Needs Privacy Anyway?

Even a child needs privacy as much as an adult. There are activities in which nearly every child participates that parents may not approve like going to dangerous places, handling harmful items or playing doctor. For a child, these sometimes risky behaviors are nothing more than discovery experiments and as long as nothing goes wrong--harmless.

I attended Catholic School. With the acquisition of God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost, not only did I lose my privacy, I picked up another passenger--guilt. Within a year, I lost patience with espionage. In many ways, the prying nature of religion led directly to my choice of journalism as a career. The idea of muckraking fit my sense of justice in exposing the unfair, predatory and often illegal practices of those charged with protecting public interests.

I had rotator cuff surgery years ago. You know it because I chose to tell you, but it was private. Abortion is a medical procedure that is no one's business. Sex between consenting adults is no one's business. Legal adult sexual behaviors, generally are no one's business. Invasion of privacy is a favorite conservative Christian pursuit, especially when it involves sex.

Anything related to sex like child birth, abortion, pre-marital sex, homosexuality or gay marriage draws the invasive eye of the Christian Right. Those eyes never turn toward themselves where a majority of what they consider aberrant behavior lies. Nor does their vision ever encompass the lynch mob mentality surrounding the death penalty, the predatory nature of the wars they support, the lack of concern about the amount of death and injury perpetrated by the business or the suppression of their own interests by--themselves.

Conservative Christians only have an interest in others privacy especially when it comes to sex where their interest are pervertedly voyeuristic and sadistically punitive. In many ways, the concerns of the Christian Right sound much like descriptions of communism during the despicable days of Joe McCarthy when everyone was a potential spy or suspect. This abnormal focus on other's sex lives is blinding in nature because it allows real sexual predators to exist as next-door neighbors.

The punitive nature of stances toward sex related activities overshadows the conservative Christian's lack of concern for flesh and blood humanity. Programs to help the 25% of the population at or beneath the poverty-level are the first targets of conservative Christians who seem unacquainted with the New Testament and Jesus' concern for the poor. After-sex is no worry for the conservative Christian, but invading sexual privacy before the fact is a well-established pattern with Christianity.

Understanding conservative Christian obsession with sex and the need to control others behaviors opposing their beliefs is key to unraveling the fascist and intrusive nature of those religionists who believe everyone should follow their rules. Being wrong never crosses the mind of the conservative religionist as inquisitive and explorative natures go against soothing and unchanging dogma. With such mindsets, privacy is the first casualty of the religious mind.